Switched at Birth: The True Story of a Mother's Journey by Kathryn Kennish, ABC Family Page B
Authors: Kathryn Kennish, ABC Family
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Several of my squirrel collectibles bit the dust in favor of Regina’s funky, brightly colored original artwork. I will confess to feeling a jealousy more intense than I’d ever known when Bay made this connection. Her artistic talent, the origins of which had been so mystifying and untraceable until now, had been a gift from her biological mother all along. That piece of herself that Bay loved most, that defined her, was a piece passed down to her from Regina.
And what had I passed down to Bay? The lyrics to The Bangles’ “Walk Like an Egyptian” (which oddly enough was the only song that could ever lull her to sleep, and which, therefore, I sang to her nightly until she was six; to this day she still sings along when it comes on the radio)? A working knowledge of finger bowls and shrimp forks even Martha Stewart would envy? Oh and, once, a tennis racquet.
John told me I shouldn’t feel that way. He said I’d absolutely given of myself to Bay, if not in nature, then definitely in nurture. Any traits and talents that had come to her innately from Regina as seedlings had been coaxed into full blossom by me, cultivated and fostered (I’d bristled at his use of that word, and he immediately took it back). I was the one who taught her to be confident. She learned by my example to expect only good things from herself and to share her spark with the world.
“The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” John had said. Of course, in our case the apple had been picked from the branch and thrown clear across the orchard.
But as I’d learned way back when in chem lab: equal and opposite. The good news was that I was seeing things in Daphne that reminded me so much of myself at that age that it was like stepping through the looking glass and into my own past.
It wasn’t just her looks, and there’s no denying that the resemblance to sixteen-year-old me was startling. But it was much more than how she looked. She moved like I did. She loved to cook and she had an almost obsessive love of avocados. She was a lemons-out-of-lemonade kind of gal, just like I was. Daphne was naturally inclined to look for the bright side of a situation and wring every drop of positivity out of it. There was an innocence about her that I was sure would never go away, and she possessed a desire to please others not because she was subservient, but simply because it made her happy to see them happy.
And although, as a teenager, I had never faced a struggle that matched the magnitude of Daphne’s hearing loss, I believe in my heart that the lion’s share of her courage and tenacity had come to her directly from me. Grudgingly, I made myself admit that Regina had taken the nurturing ball and run with it on this one. I knew she’d done her homework, I knew she’d become an expert on everything pertaining to deafness, and I knew that she worked every day of her life to insure that Daphne, my Daphne, our Daphne would never feel diminished by it.
I will never, as long as I live, be able to repay her for that.
But I will tell you that this adjusted living situation was not without its complications. This mother and child reunion brought with it more than just the opportunity for me to revel in how much Daphne was like me.
If I’d thought John’s college buddies were rough on the place, they were nothing compared to Regina. On the first morning of our new living arrangement I walked in to find her actually stripping the wallpaper off the walls! The wallpaper that had taken me three decorators and I don’t know how many swatches to select. It matched the window valances (although a quick glance told me those were gone, too) and the throw pillows (still tossed artfully into the corners of the couch, but I doubted they were long for this world).
I did what I’d come to do—which was invite this one-woman wrecking crew to join us for dinner on the patio that evening—and sought out my husband.
He knew immediately that I was upset.
Several of my squirrel collectibles bit the dust in favor of Regina’s funky, brightly colored original artwork. I will confess to feeling a jealousy more intense than I’d ever known when Bay made this connection. Her artistic talent, the origins of which had been so mystifying and untraceable until now, had been a gift from her biological mother all along. That piece of herself that Bay loved most, that defined her, was a piece passed down to her from Regina.
And what had I passed down to Bay? The lyrics to The Bangles’ “Walk Like an Egyptian” (which oddly enough was the only song that could ever lull her to sleep, and which, therefore, I sang to her nightly until she was six; to this day she still sings along when it comes on the radio)? A working knowledge of finger bowls and shrimp forks even Martha Stewart would envy? Oh and, once, a tennis racquet.
John told me I shouldn’t feel that way. He said I’d absolutely given of myself to Bay, if not in nature, then definitely in nurture. Any traits and talents that had come to her innately from Regina as seedlings had been coaxed into full blossom by me, cultivated and fostered (I’d bristled at his use of that word, and he immediately took it back). I was the one who taught her to be confident. She learned by my example to expect only good things from herself and to share her spark with the world.
“The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” John had said. Of course, in our case the apple had been picked from the branch and thrown clear across the orchard.
But as I’d learned way back when in chem lab: equal and opposite. The good news was that I was seeing things in Daphne that reminded me so much of myself at that age that it was like stepping through the looking glass and into my own past.
It wasn’t just her looks, and there’s no denying that the resemblance to sixteen-year-old me was startling. But it was much more than how she looked. She moved like I did. She loved to cook and she had an almost obsessive love of avocados. She was a lemons-out-of-lemonade kind of gal, just like I was. Daphne was naturally inclined to look for the bright side of a situation and wring every drop of positivity out of it. There was an innocence about her that I was sure would never go away, and she possessed a desire to please others not because she was subservient, but simply because it made her happy to see them happy.
And although, as a teenager, I had never faced a struggle that matched the magnitude of Daphne’s hearing loss, I believe in my heart that the lion’s share of her courage and tenacity had come to her directly from me. Grudgingly, I made myself admit that Regina had taken the nurturing ball and run with it on this one. I knew she’d done her homework, I knew she’d become an expert on everything pertaining to deafness, and I knew that she worked every day of her life to insure that Daphne, my Daphne, our Daphne would never feel diminished by it.
I will never, as long as I live, be able to repay her for that.
But I will tell you that this adjusted living situation was not without its complications. This mother and child reunion brought with it more than just the opportunity for me to revel in how much Daphne was like me.
If I’d thought John’s college buddies were rough on the place, they were nothing compared to Regina. On the first morning of our new living arrangement I walked in to find her actually stripping the wallpaper off the walls! The wallpaper that had taken me three decorators and I don’t know how many swatches to select. It matched the window valances (although a quick glance told me those were gone, too) and the throw pillows (still tossed artfully into the corners of the couch, but I doubted they were long for this world).
I did what I’d come to do—which was invite this one-woman wrecking crew to join us for dinner on the patio that evening—and sought out my husband.
He knew immediately that I was upset.
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